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ARFIELD 



LIBRARY' OF CONGRESS, 



Shelf. ..^335^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



GhZEIMIS 

OF THE 

CAMPAIGN 

OK 

1880. 

BY 

GENERALS GRANT AND GARFIELD. 




COMPILED BY 

V 

GEORGE P. EDGAR. 



Jersey City : 

ISSUED BY THE LINCOLN ASSOCIATION. 

1831. 






, 0- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, 

By JAMES GOPSILL, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



PRINTED BY 
THE EVENING JOURNAL ASSOCIATION, 

JERSEY CITY, N. T- 





INTRODUCTION. 



The compiler is certain that, rather than the usual 
preface, a speech from the gallant Fremont, the first 
leader of the Republican Party, the memorable Gettys- 
burg address by President Lincoln, the first Repub- 
lican President, and a few remarks of President 
Hayes on education, will be received by all patriotic 
and intelligent readers of these " Gems" as a fitting in- 
troduction. 



GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT, 

At the Coleman House, New York, Aug. 4TH. 



I thank you, gentlemen. Your cordial welcome 
gives me great pleasure. I am sincerely glad that the 
great events which have intervened have not oblit- 
erated the memory of the time when we worked to- 
gether and became friends. Coming freshly among 
you, and having meanwhile met but few of you, my 
mind naturally reverts to that time, and the results of 
your work stand out to me in bolder relief, probably, 
than to yourselves, who have been engaged upon it 
continuously. 






INTRODUCTION. 



I congratulate you upon it. To you belongs the 
satisfaction that the end has crowned your work. 
When you began it — when the Republican party ob- 
tained control of the Government, it presented here 
what Mr. Webster's warning voice called " the dis- 
severed fragments of a glorious Republic." 

Being then for the moment in England, I had occa- 
sion to feel how our friends were grieved, and our 
enemies rejoiced, over what they all considered the 
disastrous failure of our " experiment/' 

They did not believe in the possibility of reunion. 
They had no knowledge of our military strength 
and did not believe in it; they looked upon our politi- 
cal theory as a failure, and regarded the country as 
practically bankrupt. 

But you, the Republican party, changed all this. 
You sustained the country throughout that formidable 
war. You reunited the fragments and made of them a 
nation. You carried it successfully through its after- 
period of exhaustion, and have brought it to its pres- 
ent condition of great and expanding prosperity. 

Now, in this condition of assured tranquility and 
prosperity, our political opponents demand that you 
should turn over to them and place in their discretion 
the fruits of your labor and the results of your 
policy. 

For answer we refer them to the country. 

Meantime, while they are demanding everything 
from us, we will take something from them. It was a 
time-honored maxim of the Democratic party — be- 
longing to a time when Democracy was one and the 
same with the Union, when its great chiefs battled 
against the first encroachments upon the Union — 







INTRODUCTION. 



" Measures, not men" was the party rule. I see with 
pleasure that our party is disposed to adopt this 
maxim, and to treat this contest as above personalities. 

Abuse of candidates can serve no good purpose. 
Its only effect is to depreciate and lessen in the eyes 
of the people the office itself, which is the expression 
of their own dignity and power. 

The choice of candidates concerns each party 
solely. They have made their selections and are satis- 
fied with them, and each has abundant reason for 
being so. 

We, certainly, are fully satisfied and well pleased 
with our candidates, General Garfield and General 
Arthur. 

But, once nominated, the candidate is absorbed into 
his party, and it is with the party itself and its record 
that the people have to do. 

Certainly, the people of our country, the great body 
of the people, are more highly informed than in any 
other. They are kept daily and currently informed by 
the Press, which is in quick and full sympathy with 
them, and which also constantly reflects their opinions 
and wishes. They elect their Presidents understand- 
ing^. They put them in place to represent their 
views and to carry them out ; and no President can 
safely undertake to put himself in declared opposition 
to the will of the party that puts him in office. 

During our civil war — and it is not so far back but 
that we remember the course of its events distinctly — 
we know of our own knowledge that the people were 
always ahead of the Administration and compelled its 
action. 

he question, therefore, before the country is, which 








INTRODUCTION. 



of the two great parties that are claiming its confidence 
has, for the needs and uses of the people, the best rec- 
ord ? Which, judged by its record, is the safer of the 
two to be intrusted with the business interests of the 
country ? 

At the outset, the Republican party declared its pur- 
poses and its policy. 

It has fulfilled its promises. 

It has executed its measures and tested them. 

It has redeemed its paper and is a solvent party, and 
now it comes before the country upon its record. 

When it has happened to a man to receive a shock 
in business through the misconduct, or, let us say, 
through the incapacity of a trusted agent, and he em- 
ploys another agent who brings ordei into his affairs, 
pays his debts, retrieves his fortune, and puts his busi- 
ness in a prosperous condition — is it likely that he 
would remove him to put another in his place ? 

Is it at all probable that he would discharge his tried 
agent and put in his place the very man who brought 
his disasters upon him ? Twenty years ago the people 
made the Republican party their agent to retrieve their 
estate. 

You, the Republicans, carried them through the 
storm of the war and the stagnation which followed it, 
and brought them to this period of solid prosperity 
unparalleled in their history. 

Certainly there can be no sound reason to risk dis- 
turbing the present conditions. 

I am glad to see that the Republican party is to-day 
more united than it has been for many years, and it is 
to be hoped that no Republican will permit himself to 
be drawn from the ranks by any side issues whatever. 






INTRODUCTION. 



Every man knows — every man in business, every 
farmer in the country, knows that he has a personal 
and present interest, more or less direct, in the well- 
being of the country; and every man will do a wrong, 
not only to the country but to himself, who does not 
look carefully into the subjects at issue and vote ac- 
cordingly. 

Now, gentlemen, I have not supposed that I was 
saying anything not perfectly well known to yourselves; 
but in coming among you I thought it well to say 
something of what is the color of my mind on the sub- 
ject which so interests us. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

At the Dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, 
November 19, 1863. 




Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great 
civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation 
so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 
are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have 
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest- 
ing-place for those who here gave their lives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can- 
not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow 
this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
ggled here, have consecrated it far above 






INTRODUCTION. 



power to add or detract. The world will little note, 
nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never 
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, 
rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly 
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us, that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; 
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom, and that government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth. 



PRESIDENT HAYES, 
At Columbus, Ohio, August, 1880. 



I am firmly convinced that the subject of popular 
education deserves the earnest attention of the people 
of the whole country, with a view to wise and com- 
prehensive action by the Government of the United 
States. The means at the command of the local and 
State authorities are in many cases wholly inadequate 
to deal with the question. The magnitude of the evil 
to be eradicated is not, I apprehend, generally and 
fully understood. Consider these facts: 

THE UNEDUCATED CLASSES. 

First — In the late slaveholding States, under the 
system of slavery, education was denied to the colored 







INTRODUCTION. 



people, and the education of the non-slaveholding 
white people was greatly neglected. * * * 
This leaves 2,447,488 — almost two and half millions — 
of the young who are growing up without the means 
of education. Citizenship and the right to vote were 
conferred upon the colored people by the Government 
and people of the United States. It is, therefore, the 
sacred duty, as it is the highest interest, of the United 
States to see that these new citizens and voters are 
fitted by education for the grave responsibility which 
has been cast upon them. Dr. Ruffner, School Super- 
intendent of Virginia, in an argument that the General 
Government should aid the public schools of the 
South, says: 

" I know not what is true of Northern and Western 
States, but I can say for my State, and for most of the 
Southern States, we are not able to educate our peo- 
ple in any tolerable sense. We are too poor to do it. 
A few years ago I showed this conclusively by stat- 
istics." * * * 

Second. — In the Territories of the United States it is 
estimated that there are over 200,000 Indians, almost 
all of whom are uncivilized. They have heretofore 
been hunters and warriors. * * * With 

the disappearance of game there can no longer re- 
main Indian hunters and warriors. The days of In- 
dian wars are drawing to a close. There will soon be 
no room for question as to the department to which the 
Indian will belong. In a few years all must agree that 
he should belong, like every other citizen, only to him- 
self. The time is not distant when he should be 
chiefly cared for by the civilizing department of the 
Government, the Bureau of Education. 







INTRODUCTION. 



Third. — The people of the Territory of New Mexico 
have never been provided with the means of educa- 
tion. * * * The school population is now 
over 30,000, of which only about one-sixth are enrolled 
in schools. It will not be questioned that the power of 
the General Government to " make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting the territory belonging to 
the United States " is sufficient to authorize it to pro- 
vide for the education of the increasing mass of illit- 
erate citizens growing up in New Mexico and in the 
other Territories of the United States. 

Fourth. — The number of immigrants arriving in the 
United States is greater than ever before. It is 
probable, from present indications, that, from this 
source alone, there will be added, during the current 
decade, to the population of our country 5,000,000 
of people. * * * * 

Happily for the United States, several of the large 
elements of this immigration contain very few people 
who are wholly uneducated. The Germans and Scan- 
dinavians have for the most part been educated at 
public schools in their native country. But it is proba- 
ble that from one-fourth to one-third of the present 
total immigration into our country is from foreign 
nations in which popular education is greatly neglected. 
It may reasonably be estimated that at least from 20 
to 25 per cent, of the immigrants are illiterate. In 
the current decade we shall probably receive from 
abroad more than a million of people of school age 
and upward who are unable to read or write any lan- 
guage; and of these, about a quarter of a million, in 
a few years, will share with us equally, man for man, the 
duties and responsibilities of the citizen and the voter. 






INTRODUCTION. 



Jefferson, with his almost marvelous sagacity and 
foresight, declared nearly a hundred years ago that 
free schools were an essential part — one of the columns, 
as he expressed it — of the Republican edifice, and that 
" without instruction, free to all, the sacred flame of 
liberty could not be kept burning in the hearts of 
Americans." Madison said, almost sixty years ago, 
" A popular government, without popular information 
or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a 
farce or tragedy, or perhaps to both/' Already, in too 
many instances, elections have become the farce which 
Madison predicted ; and the tremendous tragedy which 
we saw when we were soldiers of the Union, and in 
which we bore a part, could never have occurred if in 
all sections of our country there had been universal 
suffrage based upon universal education. In our 
country, as everywhere else, it will be found that, in 
the long run, ignorant voters are powder and ball for 
the demagogues. The failure to support free schools 
in any part of our country tends to cheapen and de- 
grade the right of our suffrage, and will ultimately de- 
stroy its value in every other part of the Republic. 

The unvarying testimony of history is that the 
nations which win the most renowned victories in 
peace and war are those which provide ample means 
for popular education. Without free schools there is 
no such thing as affording to " every man an unfet- 
tered start and a fair chance in the race of life." In 
the present condition of our country, universal educa- 
tion requires the aid of the General Government. 
The authority to grant such aid is established by a 
line of precedents, beginning with the origin of the 

:public and running down through almost every 







INTRODUCTION. 



administration to the present time. Let this aid be 
granted wherever it is essential to the enjoyment of 
free popular instruction. In the language of Mr. 
Webster: 

" The census of these States shows how great a 
proportion of the whole population occupies the 
classes between infancy and manhood. Those are the 
wide fields, and here is the deep and quick soil for the 
seeds of knowledge and virtue; and this is the favored 
season, the very springtime for sowing them. Let 
them be disseminated without stint. Let them be 
scattered with a bountiful hand broadcast. Whatever 
the Government can fairly do towards those objects, 
in my opinion, ought to be done " 






GENERAL GRANT. 



The Republican Party Must Not be Beaten 
Now — No Surrender Until There are Free 
Elections and an Honest Count. 

My Dear General Logan: — I left this place two 
weeks ago for an extended- tour through San Luis 
Park and the Gunnison country, and hence have only 
just received your letter of the 28th of July. I will be 
going East the latter part of September, and will 
gladly attend any meeting intended to further the suc- 
cess of the ticket headed by Garfield and Arthur. I 
agree with you that it will not do to be beaten now. 
We should never be beaten until every man who 
counts, or represents those who count, in the enumer- 
ation to give representation in the Electoral College, 
can cast his vote just as he pleases, and can have it 
counted just as he cast it. Yours truly, 
Manitou Springs, Col., Aug. 12, 1SS0. U. S. GRANT. 

At Warren, Ohio, September 28. 




In view of the known character and ability of the 
speaker [Senator Conkling] who is to address you 






GENERAL GRANT. 



to-day, and his long public career and association with 
the leading statesmen of this country for the past 
twenty years, it would not be becoming in me to detain 
you with many remarks of my own. But it may be 
proper for me to account to you on the first occasion 
of my presiding at political meetings for the faith 
that is in me. 

I am a Republican, as the two great political parties 
are now divided, because the Republican party is a 
National party seeking the greatest good for the 
greatest number of citizens. There is not a precinct 
in this vast Nation where a Democrat cannot cast his 
ballot and have it counted as cast. No matter what 
the prominence of the opposite party, he can proclaim 
his political opinions, even if he is only one among a 
thousand, without fear and without proscription on 
account of his opinions. There are fourteen States, 
and localities in some other States, where Republicans 
have not this privilege. 

This is one reason why I am a Republican. But I 
am a Republican for many other reasons. The 
Republican party assures protection to life and prop- 
erty, the public credit and the payment of the debts of 
the Government, State, county, or municipality so far 
as it can control. The Democratic party does not 
promise this; if it does it has broken its promises to 
the extent of hundreds of millions as many Northern 








GENERAL GRANT. 



Democrats can testify to their sorrow. I am a Repub- 
lican, as between the existing parties, because it fosters 
the production of the field and farm and of manufac- 
tories, and it encourages the general education of the 
poor as well as the rich. The Democratic party dis- 
courages all these when in absolute power. The 
Republican party is a party of progress and of liberal- 
ity toward its opponents. It encourages the poor to 
strive to better their children, to enable them to com- 
pete successfully with their more fortunate associates, 
and, in fine, it secures an entire equality before the 
law of every citizen, no matter what his race, nation- 
ality or previous condition. It tolerates no privileged 
class. Every one has the opportunity to make himself 
all he is capable of. 

Ladies and gentlemen, do you believe this can be 
truthfully said in the greater part of fourteen of the 
States of tfris Union to-day which the Democratic party 
control absolutely ? The Republican party is a party 
of principles, the same principles prevailing wherever 
it has a foothold. The Democratic party is united in 
but one thing, and that is in getting control of the 
Government in all its branches. It is for internal im- 
provement at the expense of the Government in one 
section and against this in another. It favors repudia- 
tion of solemn obligations in one section and honest 
payment of its debts in another, where public opinion 






GENERAL GRANT. 

will not tolerate any other view. It favors fiat money 
in one place and good money in another. Finally, it 
favors the pooling of all issues not favored by the Re- 
publicans, to the end that it may secure the one prin- 
ciple upon which the party is a most harmonious unit, 
namely, getting control of the Government in all its 
branches. 

I have been in some part of every State lately in re- 
bellion within the last year. I was most hospitably re- 
ceived at every place where I stopped. My receptions 
were not by the Union class alone, but by all classes, 
without distinction. I had a free talk with many who 
were against me in the war and who have been against 
the Republican party ever since. They were in all in- 
stances reasonable men, judged by what they said. I 
believed then and believe now that they sincerely want 
a break-up in this " Solid South " political condition. 
They see that it is to their pecuniary interest as well 
as to their happiness that there should be harmony 
and confidence between all sections. They want to 
break away from the slavery which binds them to a 
party name. They want a pretext that enough of 
them can unite upon to make it respectable. Once 
started, the Solid South will go as Ku-Kluxism did be- 
fore, and is so admirably told by Judge Tourgee in 
his " Fool's Errand." When the break comes those 
who start it will be astonished to find how many of 







GENERAL GRANT. 



their friends have been in favor of it for a long time, 
and have only been waiting to see some one take the 
lead. This desirable solution can only be attained by 
the defeat and continued defeat of the Democratic 
party as now constituted. 



At Jersey City, Oct 21. 
ACADEMY OF MUSIC, 7:30 P. M. 




Ladies and Gentlemen : I believe that when 
I came in you were listening to a very good speech, 
and I suppose it was a political speech, full of good 
advice to the people at this time. I hope so, at any rate, 
and that you were learning good reasons why the Re- 
publican party should be successful at the approaching 
election. I have been traveling around a little, not 
making speeches, because I cannot make one, but I 
have heard some in the course of my travels. I have 
seen the people, too, and I think that I can give to you 
a full assurance that the Republican ticket at the ap- 
proaching election is going to have the vote of the 
Solid North, including New Jersey. It used to be a 
common saying some years ago that New Jersey was 
not in the United States ; that it was a foreign land ; 
but since that she has redeemed herself on several oc- 
casions, and she is going to again prove her allegiance 





GENERAL GRANT. 



to the United States on the second of November. I 
would not say anything, if I could help it, that could 
be offensive to any Democrat who might be present. 
I like the Democrats. Some of my best friends are 
among the Democrats, but then I think that they ought 
to be satisfied with the Republicans running this Gov- 
ernment, at least until such time as they can give 
better assurances that they would run it in the same 
way — for the interest of all classes and all sections. 
During the Democratic war that we had — from 1861 
to 1865 — I always contended that the Rebels, all of 
whom were Democrats, were just as much interested 
in their defeat as we were interested in defeating them. 
I believe I was right then ; I believe it was the interest 
of every foot of territory, and every person occupying 
every foot of territory in this glorious Union, that the 
Rebellion should be put down, and that we should re- 
main one and a united people. And I believe to-day 
that every Democrat that is interested in good gov- 
ernment is as much interested in their defeat on the 
second of November as the Republicans are in de- 
feating them. In other words, I believe in the great- 
est good to the greatest number, and that that good 
comes from our success. I hope that this audience, 
ladies and all, unite with me in that sentiment, and that 
the speaker whom I have interrupted by my entrance 
at this late hour will convince you of it before he gets 







GENERAL GRANT. 




through. I am very much obliged to you for your 
cordial welcome. 



TABERNACLE, 8:30 P. M. 




Ladies and Gentlemen : I will do nothing more 
than thank you for the cordiality of your reception. 
I have been attending political meetings all the after- 
noon and evening. I presided over a meeting at Stam- 
ford, Connecticut, and was called upon to make a 
speech. At another meeting in Jersey City this even- 
ing I astonished myself by talking five minutes, and I 
never thought of doing such a thing when I got up. 
I went so far as to give what I deemed a reason why 
New Jersey should join the whole North, and why the 
Democratic party would find it just as much to their 
interest to be beaten by us as we will find it to our 
interest to beat them. The Republican party never 
asks anything for itself which it does not grant to 
others. If we have three to one in a precinct, we do 
not forbid the ballot to the fourth man, but we allow 
him to come up and vote just as he pleases, and we 
count his vote just as he casts it. Now, all we ask for 
our carpet-baggers, the colored race, and all others, is 
that they shall be allowed to vote, to have their ballot 
counted as they cast it, and not to be turned out of 
their homes or ostracised. That is all we ask 





GENERAL GRANT. 



they beat us on this issue we are willing to accept a 
beating. The beauty of our system of government is 
that if a bad government gets into power it can be 
changed the next time there is an election, but if you 
adopt the shot-gun policy a bad Government may 
perpetuate the solid South forever. And as every intel- 
ligent citizen desires to retain the power of excluding 
evil governments, that is why New Jersey should 
follow the suit of all the Northern States. 




OPERA HOUSE, 9:30 P. M. 




Ladies and Gentlemen : This is the third politi- 
cal meeting that I have been at in Jersey City this 
evening, and they were all of them crowded houses. 
I came out of doors, and all the streets that I have 
been in were filled with people, from which I conclude 
that all of New Jersey is in Jersey City this evening. 
[Laughter. J It being a Republican occasion, an occa- 
sion of Republican rejoicing, I suppose they are all 
rejoicing with us in the successes we have met with 
in the States that have polled, and the anticipated 
successes in the States that are to poll; and if all the 
men that I have seen to-night in your streets cast their 
votes for the Republican candidate, I do not believe 
there will be any Democratic votes cast in this city 
at all. I know that heretofore, when you have been 






GENERAL GRANT. 



deficient in Jersey City and Hudson County of Demo- 
cratic forces — that you were able to get in a few votes 
after sundown [laughter], keeping your polls open, as 
you do, to 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. 

But I have no doubt that we will all rejoice together 
after the second of November, and that we will per- 
petuate this Government and Union for the benefit of 
all the people in the country, black and white, male 
and female, North and South, and make it so that the 
carpet-baggers can really prosper, do business and be 
respected and respectable in the Southern States, 
as they are in the Western States, and help them 
to build up the South and make it prosperous, 
as the carpet-baggers of the West have done out 
there. We are all carpet-baggers — nothing else. 
Why, it is only quite recently that in the State where 
I live — where I carpet-bagged to some years ago — had 
a Governo*r who was a native of that State. The 
present Governor of Illinois is a native, and is the 
first native of the State who has filled the office; yet 
I respect some of the preceding Governors, though 
they were carpet-baggers, for they helped to build up 
and make the State that baby we are so proud of. 
One county in Illinois — Cook County — and one in 
Ohio — Hamilton County — was built up entirely by the 
acts, the providing and the energy of these carpet- 
baggers, and I venture to say that these counties are 



-•=£?. 






GENERAL GRANT. 




so wealthy that their citizens could atford to buy them 
right out from the mother State; and not have to sell 
them again in order to pay for them. What has been 
the effect of the carpet-bag government in the North- 
west ? Let us hope that after this election carpet- 
baggers may go freely into the South, build up their 
waste places, make them happy and rich, introduce 
free schools — which play havoc with Democracy 
wherever they go [laughter] ; they knock Democracy 
higher than a kite [renewed laughter] — introduce 
their free schools, their energy, and their business 
talent, and we will have a prosperous and happy and 
Republican South. 



At Utica, N. Y., Oct. 25. 
FREEDOM OF OPINION IN THE SOUTH. 




Citizens of Utica : Under no circumstances will 
I detain you long, but having a bad cold, and being 
so hoarse that I can scarcely speak, I shall detain you 
even a less time. I came here to preside at a political 
meeting. It is a new business for me, and if it was 
not for the earnestness I feel for the cause which 
agitates the public mind at this time I should continue 
a custom which I have followed for more than fifty 
years — that is, in not taking part in political meetings. 
But this country has suffered so much in blood and 






GENERAL GRANT. 



treasure to uphold the flag of our Union and maintain 
the best form of government that has ever been 
devised for men, that it seemed to me that I could not 
bear the idea of seeing the country in its legislative 
and in all its branches turned over to a party com- 
posed in great part of those who recently tried to 
destroy it. 

We do not advocate the principles of the Republi- 
can party because we believe they are for the good of 
the Republican party alone, and to the prejudice of 
the interests of the opposite party; but we proclaim 
them at this time because we believe they are the best 
for all parties. We believe that the Democrats are 
just as much interested to-day in the success of the 
Republican party as the Republicans of the United 
States are. We believe further that the Southern 
States that were lately in rebellion are just as much 
interested, "and more interested, in the success of the 
Republican party. We all know that there is no man 
in the South who is not privileged to come and 
settle among us in the North in any section and 
retain his political views and at the same time prose- 
cute his business, whether it be professional, mercan- 
tile or what not. 

The Northern man has not the same privilege in 
the South. If he goes there to prosecute his business 

must be quiet on political questions of great weight. 






GENERAL GRANT. 



In other words, the carpet-bagger is not a welcome 
citizen among them. Now, we want to see all of this 
changed. I myself am from a Northwestern State. 
We are all carpet-baggers in that section. The whole 
of it has been built up in the life-time of many here 
present; and see the result of carpet-bag settlement 
in the Northwest. The whole of it, out of which has 
been grafted five or six fine States is the gift of one of 
the old slave States! See the prosperity and the 
thrift that have been brought to these new States 
by these carpet-baggers ! They built up our Cincin- 
nati, our Chicago, our Detroit, our Indianapolis, our 
Cleveland, and hundreds of smaller towns of great 
prosperity. With the same pfivileges extended to 
carpet-baggers, the growth that has been seen in the 
Northwest would have been seen ere this in the South- 
ern States. We claim that no great prosperity can 
overtake these until every citizen of every State is 
regarded as a citizen of the United States, no matter 
where he goes, and with the privileges of proclaiming 
his political principles without molestation. 



At Syracuse, N. Y., Oct. 26. 




WHY I AM A REPUBLICAN. 
Citizens of Syracuse : I am here among you to- 
day at your request, as conveyed to me through your j ; 





GENERAL GRANT. 



committee, not to say much myself, bat to show my 
interest in the cause of the Republican party at the 
approaching election. If I did not feel a deep inter- 
est in the success of this party I would not be here. 
If I did not believe it was for the interest of all par- 
ties and all sections that we should succeed at this 
time, I would not be here. Among the Democrats of 
the North I have a great many warm personal friends, 
men whom I like personally as well as any friends I 
have under the sun. Some of them, those whom I 
claim as my friends, are patriotic, good men, and I 
believe if the Democratic party was composed entirely, 
North and South, of such men I w r ould still be a 
Republican, but I would not feel as much distress if 
the Republican party was not successful. But even 
admitting that all the Democrats in the Northern 
States were of the class I speak of (but I do not ad- 
mit it), we would not be secure under a Democratic 
Administration. You all know that the bulk of the 
Democracy is in the Southern States, and that it will 
control if the Democratic party goes into power, and 
it is just as impossible that the limited number of 
Democrats of the North should control, as it is that 
the dog's tail should wag the dog. [Laughter.] In 
all instances the dog will wag the tail, and if they 
should get into power that tail would be so powerful 
that it would sweep down at one stroke all of 




l 



•*S 



1 






GENERAL GRANT. 



your industries and prosperity, all of your banks 
and your manufactories, and your industries of 
all sorts and descriptions. We don't want to see 
this. We all know that the North with its great 
intelligence, its free schools, its energy and its indus- 
try, could not be stricken not to rise again, but in 
rising it would suffer years of toil and disappointment. 
We want to avoid that, and to do that we want to elect 
Garfield and Arthur in November. You will probably 
hear — probably have heard, and probably will hear 
again before election day, the Democratic party 
arraigned as a party that has never advocated, cer- 
tainly not in a quarter of a century, advocated or 
done a good act. I will not quite agree with those 
speakers now, but a few days ago I would. I, within 
a few days, read an extract from a speech made by a 
Southern orator, whose audience happened to be com- 
posed largely of colored men, and he told them they 
were laboring under a great mistake in supposing 
that Lincoln had emancipated them. He reminded 
them of the fact that Lincoln's emancipation procla- 
mation gave them — the rebels — ninety days in which 
to lay down their arms and to save their property, 
"but they fit right straight ahead." He says the 
proclamation didn't emancipate them, and hence Lin- 
coln was not entitled to the credit of it. Now, gentle- 
men, I am sure I shall introduce to you a speaker 






GENERAL GRANT. 



[General Woodford] who will give you many more 
reasons than I possibly can why you should support 
Garfield and Arthur on the second of November 
next. 

Two Speeches at Auburn N. Y., Oct. 26. 




REPUBLICANS WIDE AWAKE. 
Ladies and Gentlemen : I am convinced from 
all I hear and see that the people — the Republicans — 
are wide awake as to their best interests at this elec- 
tion. They will return the power into the hands of 
the people who saved the country in time of danger. 
We are not ready at this time to surrender the inter- 
ests of this country into the hands of those who have 
for twenty years endeavored to destroy it. They must 
give up the principles for which Lee and Jackson 
fought before we will receive their system of doctrine. 
Before it will be safe to surrender our convictions, they 
must give up the doctrine of State Rights. The Dem- 
ocrats felt sure of 138 electoral votes at Cincinnati, no 
matter what nomination might be made. The Dem- 
ocratic party does not care a cent for a platform. If 
a Republican had been sent to the Cincinnati Conven- 
tion to dictate a platform they would have accepted it. 
Any platform that would secure forty-seven electoral 
votes was what they wanted. The Republican party 






GENERAL GRANT. 

permits a ballot to be cast by every voter. When 
beaten by a ballot so cast, they will surrender, and will 
submit to whatever may happen. 

General Grant was then conducted across the street 
to the other wigwam, where he spoke as follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have just come from 
the wigwam across the way, where I spoke much longer 
than I can hope to here, and I do not know that I can 
say anything more than to thank you. I had one ad- 
vantage at my last stopping place, as I saw no reporter 
present, and am sure I will not get reported. [Laugh- 
ter.] But I will testify to you that I believe the best 
interests of the country demand, and the great uprising 
we have witnessed all through this country in the last 
two weeks, and the joy we witness here to-day, all in- 
dicate that the people of this country are determined to 
maintain intact the country for which we fought, and 
for the principles for which we sacrificed so much. I 
am sure I can say nothing more, and am certain not 
so well, on the subject as the speakers you have with 
you to-day, and who will formulate and prove this propo- 
sition. I believe that on the second of November this 
great State of New York is going to cast her vote for 
Garfield and Authur, and so surely as she does, they 
will be elected. I thank you for your attention. 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



At Chicago, June 9. 



General Garfield Officially Informed of His 
Nomination. 




Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I assure you 
the information you have officially given to me brings 
the sense of very grave responsibility, and especially 
so in view of the fact that I was a member of your 
body, a fact that could not have existed with propriety, 
had I had the slightest expectation that my name would 
be connected with the nomination for the office. I 
have felt with you great solicitude concerning the 
situation of. our party during the struggle; but, be- 
lieving that you are correct in assuring me that sub- 
stantial unity has been reached in the conclusion, it 
gives me a gratification far greater than any personal 
pleasure your announcement can bring. 

I accept the trust committed to my hands. As to 
the work of our party, and as to the character of the 
campaign to be entered upon, I will take an early 
occasion to reply more fully than I can properly do 
to-night. 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 




I thank you for the assurances of confidence and 
esteem you have presented to me, and hope we shall see 
our future as promising as are the indications to-night. 



At Washington, June 16. 




A SERENADE. 

Fellow Citizens : While I have looked upon this 
great array I believe I have gotten a new idea of the 
majesty of the American people. When I reflect that 
whenever you find sovereign power every reverent 
heart on this earth bows before it ; and when I remem- 
ber that here for a hundred years we have denied the 
sovereignty of any one man ; and in place of it we 
have asserted the sovereignty of all in place of one. 
I see before me so vast a concourse that it is easy for 
me to imagine that the rest of the American people 
are gathered here to-night. And if they were all here 
every man would stand uncovered and in unsandaled 
feet in presence of the majesty of the only sovereign 
power in this Government under Almighty God. And 
therefore to this great audience I pay the respectful 
homage that in part belongs to the sovereignty of the 
public. I thank you for this great and glorious dem- 
onstration. I am not for one moment misled into be- 
lieving that it refers to so poor a thing as any one of 
our number. I know it means your reverence to your 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



Government, your reverence for its laws, your rever- 
ence for its institutions, and your compliment to one 
who is placed for a moment in relation to you of pecu- 
liar importance. For all these reasons I thank you. 
I cannot, at this time, utter a word on the subject of 
general politics. I would not mar the cordiality of 
this welcome to which to some extent all are gathered 
by any reference except to the present moment and 
its significance ; but I wish to say that a large portion 
of this assemblage to-night are my comrades late of 
the war for the Union. For them I can speak with 
entire propriety, and can say that these very streets 
heard the measured tread of your disciplined feet 
years ago when the imperiled Republic needed your 
hands and your hearts to save it. And you came back 
with your members decimated, but those you left be- 
hind were immortal and glorified heroes forever ; and 
those you brought back came carrying under tattered 
banners and in bronzed hands the ark of the covenant 
of your Republic in safety out of the bloody baptism 
of the war, and you brought it in safety to be saved 
forever by your valor and the wisdom of your brethren 
who were at home, and by this you were again added 
to the great civil army of the Republic. I greet you, 
comrades and fellow-soldiers, and the great body of 
distinguished citizens who are gathered here to-night, 
who are the strong stay and support of the business 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



of the prosperity, of the peace, of the civic ardor and 
glory of the Republic, and I thank you for your wel- 
come to-night. It was said in a welcome to one who 
came to England to be a part of her glory, and all the 
nation spoke when it was said: " Normans and Saxons 
and Danes are we, but all of us Danes in our welcome 
of thee ; " and we say to-night of all the nation, 
of all the people, soldiers and civilians, there 
is one name that welds us all into one. It is the 
name of the American citizen under the Union, and 
under the glory of the flag that led us to victory and 
to peace. For this magnificent welcome, I thank you 
with all there is in my heart. 



LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 



An Able Statement of Principles. 

Mentor, O., July 12. 
Dear Sir : On the evening of the 9th of June last 
I had the honor to receive from you in the presence 
of the committee of which you were chairman, 
the official announcement that the Republican 
National Convention at Chicago had that day 
nominated me as their candidate for President of the 
United States. I accept the nomination with grati- 
tude for the confidence it implies, and with a deep 
sense of the responsibilities it imposes. I cordially 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



indorse the principles set forth in the platform adopted 
by the Convention. On nearly all the subjects of 
which it treats, my opinions are on record among the 
published proceedings of Congress. I venture, how- 
ever, to make special mention of some of the principal 
topics which are likely to become subjects of discus- 
sion. 

Without reviewing the controversies which have 
been settled during the last twenty years, and with no 
purpose or wish to revive the passions of the late war, 
it should be said that while the Republicans fully 
recognize and will strenuously defend all the rights re- 
tained by the people, and all the rights reserved to the 
States, they reject the pernicious doctrine of State 
supremacy which so long crippled the functions of the 
National Government, and at one time brought the 
Union very near to destruction. They insist that the 
United States is a nation with ample power of self- 
preservation; that its Constitution and the laws made 
in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land; 
that the right of the Nation to determine the method 
by which its own Legislature shall be created cannot 
be surrendered without abdicating one of the funda- 
mental powers of government; that the National laws 
relating to the election of Representatives in Congress 
shall neither be violated nor evaded; that every elec- 
tor shall be permitted freely and without intimidation 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



to cast his lawful ballot at such election and have it 
honestly counted, and that the potency of his vote 
shall not be destroyed by the fraudulent vote of any 
other person. 

The best thoughts and energies of our people should 
be directed to those great questions of national well- 
being in which all have a common interest. Such ef- 
forts will soonest restore perfect peace to those who 
were lately in arms against each other ; for justice and 
good-will will outlast passion. But it is certain that the 
wounds of the war cannot be completely healed, and 
the spirit of brotherhood cannot fully pervade the 
whole country until every citizen, rich or poor, white 
or black, is secure in the free and equal enjoyment of 
every civil and political right guaranteed by the Con- 
stitution and the laws. Wherever the enjoyment of 
these rights is not assured, discontent will prevail, im- 
migration will cease, and the social and industrial 
forces will continue to be disturbed by the migration 
of laborers and the consequent diminution of prosper- 
ity. The National Government should exercise all its 
constitutional authority to put an end to these evils ; 
for all the people and all the States are members of 
one body, and no member can suffer without injury to 
all. The most serious evils which now afflict the 
South arise from the fact that there is not such free- 
dom and toleration of political opinion and action 





pp~ 



GENERAL GARFIELD. 




that the minority party can exercise an effective and 
wholesome restraint upon the party in power. With- 
out such restraint party rule becomes tyrannical and 
corrupt. The prosperity which is made possible in 
the South by its great advantages of soil and climate 
will never be realized until every voter can freely and 
safely support any party he pleases. 

POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Next in importance to freedom and justice is pop- 
ular education, without which neither freedom nor 
justice can be permanently maintained. Its interests 
are intrusted to the States and to the voluntary action 
of the people. Whatever help the Nation can justly 
afford should be generously given to aid the States in 
supporting common schools ; but it would be unjust 
to our people and dangerous to our institutions to ap- 
ply any portion of the revenues of the Nation, or of 
the States, to the support of sectarian schools. The 
separation of the Church and the State in everything 
relating to taxation should be absolute. 

THE NATIONAL FINANCES. 

On the subject of National finances, my views have 
been so frequently and fully expressed that little is 
needed in the way of additional statement. The pub- 
lic debt is now so well secured and the rate of annual 
interest has been so reduced by refunding, that rigid 
economy in expenditures and the faithful application 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



of our surplus revenues to the payment of the prin- 
cipal of the debt will gradually but certainly free the 
people from its burdens, and close with honor the 
financial chapter of the war. At the same time the 
Government can provide for all its ordinary expendi- 
tures, and discharge its sacred obligations to the sol- 
diers of the Union, and to the widows and orphans of 
those who fell in its defense. The resumption of 
specie payments, which the Republican party so cour- 
ageously and successfully accomplished, has removed 
from the field of controversy many questions that long 
and seriously disturbed the credit of the Government 
and the business of the country. Our paper currency 
is now as National as the flag, and resumption has not 
only made it everywhere equal to coin, but has brought 
into use our store of gold and silver. The circulating 
medium is more abundant than ever before, and we 
need only to maintain the equality of all our dollars 
to insure to labor and capital a measure of value 
from the use of which no one can suffer loss. The 
great prosperity which the country is now enjoying 
should not be endangered by any violent changes or 
doubtful financial experiments. 

THE TARIFF. 

In reference to our custom laws a policy should be 
pursued which will bring revenues to the Treasury, 
will enable the labor and capital employed in 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



great industries to compete fairly in our own markets 
with the labor and capital of foreign producers. We 
legislate for the people of the United States, and not 
for the whole world, and it is our glory that the 
American laborer is more intelligent and better paid 
than his foreign competitor. Our country cannot be 
independent unless its people with their abundant 
natural resources possess the requisite skill at any 
time to clothe, arm and equip themselves for war, and 
in time of peace to produce all the necessary imple- 
ments of labor. It was the manifest intention of the 
founders of the Government to provide for the com- 
mon defense, not by standing armies alone, but by 
raising among the people a greater army of artisans 
whose intelligence and skill should powerfully con- 
tribute to the safety and glory of the nation. 

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 

Fortunately for the interests of commerce there is 
no longer any formidable opposition to appropriations 
for the improvement of our harbors and great navi- 
gable rivers, provided that the expenditures for that 
purpose are strictly limited to works of National im- 
portance. The Mississippi River, with its great tribu- 
taries, is of such vital importance to so many millions 
of people that the safety of its navigation requires 
exceptional consideration. In order to secure to the 
Nation the control of all its waters, President Jeffer- 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



son negotiated the purchase of a vast territory, ex- 
tending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. 
The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise 
some plan by which that great river shall cease to be 
a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and by 
which its shipping may safely carry the industrial pro- 
ducts of 25,000,000 of people. The interests of 
agriculture, which is the basis of all our material 
prosperity, and in which seven-twelfths of our popula- 
tion are engaged, as well as the interests of manufac- 
tures and commerce, demand that the facilities for 
cheap transportation shall be increased by the use of 
all our great watercourses. 

CHINESE IMMIGRATION. 

The material interests of this country, the tradi- 
tions of its settlement and the sentiment of our people 
have led the Government to offer the widest hospi- 
tality to immigrants who seek our shores for new and 
happier homes, willing to share the burdens as well as 
the benefits of our society, and intending that their 
posterity shall become an undistinguishable part of 
our population. The recent movement of the Chinese 
to our Pacific coast partakes but little of the qualities of 
such an immigration either in its purposes or its result. 
It is too much like an importation to be welcomed 
without restriction; too much like an invasion to be 
looked upon without solicitude. We cannot consent 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



to allow any form of servile labor to be introduced 
among us under the guise of immigration. Recog- 
nizing the gravity of this subject the present Adminis- 
tration, supported by Congress, has sent to China a 
Commission of distinguished citizens for the purpose 
of securing such a modification of the existing treaty 
as will prevent the evils likely to arise from the pres- 
ent situation. It is confidently believed that these 
diplomatic negotiations will be successful, without 
the loss of commercial intercourse between the two 
Powers, which promises a great increase of reciprocal 
trade and the enlargement of our markets. Should 
these efforts fail, it will be the duty of Congress to 
mitigate the evils already felt, and prevent their in- 
crease by such restrictions as, without violence or in- 
justice, will place upon a sure foundation the peace of 
our communities and the freedom and dignity of 
labor. 

THE CIVIL SERVICE. 

The appointment of citizens to the various execu- 
tive and judicial offices of the Government is, perhaps, 
the most difficult of all duties which the Constitution 
has imposed on the Executive. The Convention 
wisely demands that Congress shall co-operate with 
the Executive Departments in placing the civil ser- 
vice on a better basis. Experience has proved that 
with our frequent changes of administration no system 





d 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



of' reform can be made effective and permanent with- 
out the aid of legislation. Appointments to the mili- 
tary and naval service are so regulated by law and 
custom as to leave but little ground for complaint It 
may not be wise to make similar regulations by law 
for the civil service. But, without invading the au- 
thority or necessary discretion of the Executive, Con- 
gress should devise a method that will determine the 
tenure of office, and greatly reduce the uncertainty 
which makes that service so uncertain and unsatisfac- 
tory. Without depriving any officer of his rights as a 
citizen, the Government should require him to dis- 
charge all his official duties with intelligence, efficiency 
and faithfulness. To select wisely from our vast popu- 
lation those who are best fitted for the many offices 
to be filled, requires an acquaintance far beyond the 
range of any one man. The Executive should, there- 
fore, seek and receive the information and assistance 
of those whose knowledge of the communities in 
which the duties are to be performed best qualifies 
them to aid in making the wisest choice. 

The doctrines announced by the Chicago Conven- 
tion are not the temporary devices of a party to at- 
tract votes and carry an election; they are deliberate 
convictions resulting from a careful study of the spirit 
of our institutions, the events of our history and the 
impulses of our people. In my judgment these 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



principles should control the legislation and adminis- 
tration of the Government. In any event they will guide 
my conduct until experience points out a better way. 

If elected it will be my purpose to enforce strict 
obedience to the Constitution and the laws, and to 
promote, as best I may, the interest and honor of the 
whole country, relying for support upon the wisdom 
of Congress, the intelligence and patriotism of the 
people, and the favor of God. With great respect, 
I am very truly yours, 

J. A. GARFIELD. 
To the Hon. Geo. F. Hoar, Chairman of Committee. 





At Geneva, Ohio, Aug. 3. 

DEDICATION OF~A MONUMENT. 

Fellow Citizens : These gentlemen had no right 
to print on a paper here that I was to make a speech ; 
for the typos ought always to tell the truth, and they 
have not done it in this case. But I cannot look out 
upon a great audience in Ashtabula County, recogni- 
zing so many old faces and friends, without at least 
making* my bow to them, and saying " good-bye " be- 
fore I go. 

I cannot, either, hear such a speech as that to which 
I have just listened, without thanking the man who 
made it and the people who enabled him to make it, 
for after all no man can make a speech alone. It is 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 





the great human power that strikes up from a thou- 
sand minds that acts upon him and makes the speech. 
It originates with those outside of him, if he makes 
one at all, and every man that has stood on this plat- 
form to-day has had a speech made out of him by you, 
and by what is yonder on your square. That is the way 
speeches are made, and if I had time to stay here long 
enough these forces with you might make one out of me. 

Ideas are the only thing in this universe that are im- 
mortal. Some people think that soldiers are chiefly 
renowned for courage. That is one of the cheapest 
and commonest qualities. We share it with the brutes. 
I can find you dogs and bears and lions that will fight 
to the death, and will tear each other. Do you call 
that warfare ? They are as courageous as any of the 
soldiers, if mere brute courage is what you are after. 
The difference between them and us is this : Tigers 
never hold reunions to celebrate their victories. When 
they have eaten the creature they have killed, that is 
the only reunion they ever hold. Wild beasts never 
build monuments over their slain comrades. Why? 
Because there are no ideas behind their warfare. 

Our race has ideas ; and because ideas are immor- 
tal, if they be true, we build monuments to them. We 
hold reunions, not for the dead, for there is nothing 
in all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. 
They are past our help and past our praise. We can 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 43 



add to them no glory and we can give to them no im- 
mortality. They do not need us, but forever and for- 
ever more we need them. The glory that trailed in 
the clouds behind them after their sun had set, falls 
with its benediction upon us who are living ; and it is 
to commemorate the immortality of the ideas for which 
they fought that you assemble to-day and dedicate 
your monument, which points up toward the God who 
leads them in the glory of the great world beyond. 
And around those ideas, under the leadership of the 
immortality of those ideas, we assemble to-day rev- 
erently to follow, reverently to acknowledge the glory 
they achieved, and the benediction they left behind 
them. 

That is the meaning of an assembly like this ; and 
to join in it, and to meet you, my old neighbors 
and constituents ; to share with you the memories 
that we haye heard rehearsed, and the inspiration that 
this day points to, that this monument celebrates, is 
to me a joy, and for it I am grateful to you. 



At 241 Fifth Avenue, N. Y., Aug. 6. 




THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE ROOMS. 
Comrades of the Boys in Blue and Fellow- 
Citizens of New York: I cannot look upon this 
great assemblage and these old veterans that have 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



marched past us, and listen to the words of welcome 
from our comrade who has just spoken, without re- 
membering how great a thing it is to live in this Union 
and be a part of it. This is New York, and yonder 
toward the Battery more than a hundred years ago, a 
young student of Columbia College was arguing the 
ideas of the American revolution, and American union 
against the un-American loyalty to monarchy of his 
college president and professors. By-and-by he went 
into the patriot army, was placed on the staff of 
Washington to fight the battles of his country, and 
while in camp, before he was twenty-one years old, 
upon a drum-head he wrote a letter which contained 
every germ of the Constitution of the United States. 
That student, soldier, statesman and great leader of 
thought, Alexander Hamilton, of New York, made 
this Republic glorious by his thinking, and left his 
lasting impress upon New York, the foremost State of 
the Union. And here on this island, the scene of his 
early triumphs, we gather to-night, soldiers of the new 
war, representing the same ideas of union and glory, 
and adding to the column of the monument that 
Hamilton and Washington and the heroes of the Revo- 
lution reared. 

Gentlemen, ideas outlive 'men. Ideas outlive all 
earthly things, and you who fought in the War for the 
on fought for immortal ideas, and by their might 





-^Jti 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



you crowned our war with victory. But victory was 
worth nothing except for the fruits that were under it, 
in it and above it. We meet to-night as veterans and 
comrades to stand sacred guard around the truths for 
which we fought. And while we have life to meet 
and grasp the hand of a comrade we will stand by 
the great truths of that war. And, comrades, among 
the convictions of that war which have sunk deep into 
our hearts, there are some that we can never forget. 
Think of the great elevating spirit of the war itself. 
We gathered the boys from all our farms, and shops 
and stores, and schools, and homes, from all over the 
Republic, and they went forth unknown to fame, but 
returned enrolled on the roster of immortal heroes. 
They went in the spirit of those soldiers of Henry at 
Agincourt, of whom he said: 

" Who this day sheds his blood with me, 
To-day shall be my brother. Were he ne'er so vile 
This day shall gentle his condition." 

And it did gentle the condition and elevate the 
heart of every worthy soldier who fought in it, and he 
shall be our brother forevermore. Another thing we 
will remember ; we will remember our allies who 
fought with us. Soon after the great struggle began 
we looked behind the army of white rebels, and saw 
4,000,000 of black people condemned to toil as slaves 
our enemies; and we found that the hearts of this 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 





4,000,000 were God-inspired with the spirit of liberty, 
and that they were our friends. We have seen white 
men betray the flag and fight to kill the Union ; but 
in all that long, dreary war we never saw a traitor 
in a black skin. Our prisoners escaping from the 
starvation of prison, fleeing to our lines by the 
light of the North star, never feared to enter 
the black man's cabin and ask for bread. In alt 
that period of suffering and danger no Union sol- 
dier was ever betrayed by a black man or . woman. 
And now that we have made them free, so long as we 
live we will stand by these black allies. We will stand 
by them until the sun of liberty, fixed in the firmament 
of our Constitution, shall shine with equal ray upon 
every man, black or white, throughout the Union. 
Now, fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers, in this there is all 
the beneficence of eternal justice, and by this we will 
stand forever. The great poet has said that in indi- 
vidual life we rise " On stepping stones of our dead 
selves to higher things," and the Republic rises on the 
glorious achievements of its dead and living heroes to 
a higher and nobler national life. We must stand guard 
over our past, as soldiers, as patriots, and over our 
country as common heritage of us all. 

I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this magnificent 
demonstration. In so far as I represent in my heart 
life the great doctrines for which you fought I 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



accept this demonstration as a tribute to my repre- 
sentative character. In the strength of your hands, in 
the fervor of your hearts, in the firmness of your faith, 
in all that betokens greatness of manhood and noble- 
ness of character, the Republic finds its security and 
glory. I do not enter upon controverted questions. 
The time, the place, the situation forbid it. I respect 
the traditions that require me to speak only of these 
themes which elevate us all. Again I thank you for 
the kindness and enthusiasm of your greeting. 




At Port Jervis, N. Y., Aug. 7. 




THE UNION AND NOBILITY OF LABOR. 

I have learned in the last few minutes tw^o facts con- 
cerning this part of the country that are very interest- 
ing to me, and if I lived here I would suggest to all 
your citizens to take their young men for a pilgrimage 
to two places in your neighborhood. On the right, 
over these hills, is a stone placed to mark the spot 
where three States touch each other. Those three 
States, each representing local interests and associa- 
tions, are w T orthy of your thought; but I would point 
the young men of your town to the stone w T hich repre- 
sents the Union. I would point it out to them as a 
symbol of that larger union of our people and States 

that grand system of supreme government — and 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



would teach them to reverence it. That would be my 
first lesson to the young men. Then I would take 
them to the other side of your railroad to the little ham- 
let not faraway, which was pointed out to me as the spot 
where in the last century DeWitt Clinton was born. A 
man whose life was baptised in the spirit of the Union 
and helped to build up its glory; a man who illustrated 
the nobility of labor by building up the great system 
of canals that has done so much for the Empire State. 
Show to your children the Union and DeWitt Clinton 
and teach them that with the Union and free labor 
we are a nation that can stand worthily before the 
world. 



At Binghampton, N. Y., Aug. 7. 




HIS FATHER'S BIRTHPLACE. 

Fellow-Citizens : What is one man among this 
multitude ? W T hat can one man do in the presence of 
these thousands, these acres of people ? What can one 
man say adequate to such a greeting, to such a wel- 
come ? I know of no man who could make an ade- 
quate response. Certainly my voice cannot reach you; 
but I have stepped out for a moment to thank you, 
and to say how heartily I rejoice in the greeting of 
the happy and prosperous people of this city. Years 
I was among you, and I remember your intell 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



gence and hospitality. This part of New York has 
associations and traditions for me I can never forget. 
Not many miles from this place is the spot where my 
father was born, and I have ever desired to visit it, 
but I am probably as near to it now as I shall be on 
this journey. Fellow-citizens, there is no topic that I 
can now discuss; there is no subject upon which I can 
now address you; I can only thank you for this mag- 
nificent demonstration of welcome, and express a hope 
that this great assemblage means a tribute to our 
country's integrity and prosperity, the prosperity and 
the dignity of labor, and the harmony and peace of 
our own people under liberty and law. 




At Chautauqua, N. Y., August 9. 




TWO GREAT PROBLEMS. 

Fellow-Citizens : You have done so much to me 
since I arrived on this shore, that I am quite unable to 
tell what sort of a man I am this morning. I had 
never been here, and really did not know what 
you were doing. Last evening, I asked Mr. Vin- 
cent rather brusquely to tell me what Chautauqua 
means ; what your work here means ; and he filled me 
so full of your idea, that I have not yet assimilated it 
as to be quite sure what manner of man I am, since 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 





I got hold of it ; but this I see — you are struggling 
with one of the two great problems of civilization. 

The first one is a very old question. It is, " How 
shall we get leisure ? " That is the object of every 
hammer stroke, of every blow that labor has struck 
since the foundation of the world. The fight for 
bread is the great primal fight, and it is so absorbing 
a struggle that until one conquers to some extent he 
can have no leisure. We may divide the struggles 
of the human race into two chapters: First, the fight 
to get leisure; and, second, what to do with our leisure 
when we have won it. I take it that Chautauqua has 
assailed this second problem. Like all blessings, 
leisure is a very bad thing unless it is well used. The 
man with a fortune ready made, and with leisure on 
his hands, is likely to get sick of the world, sick of 
himself, tired of life and become a wasted, useless 
man. 

What shall you do with your leisure ? I understand 
Chautauqua is trying to answer, to explore the field of 
thought, to develope new energies, largeness of mind 
and culture in the better sense, " with the varnish 
scratched off," as our friend, Governor Kirkwood, 
says. We are getting over the fashion of painting 
and varnishing our natural woods. We are getting 
down to the real grain, and finding whatever is best 
and most beautiful in it; and if Chautauqua is helping 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



to develope in our people the native stuff that is in them 
rather than to give them the varnish and gewgaws of 
culture, it is doing well. Chautauqua, therefore, has 
filled me with thought; and, in addition to that, you 
have filled me with gratitude for your kindness and 
for this great spontaneous greeting in the early morn- 
ing — earlier than men of leisure usually get up. Some 
of these gentlemen of the Press around me look dis- 
tressed at this early rising, by which you have com- 
pelled our whole party to look at the early sun. This 
greeting on the lake slope toward the sun is very 
precious to me, and I thank you all. 

This is a mixed audience of citizens, and I will not 
offend the proprieties of the occasion by discussing 
controverted questions or entering upon any political 
discussion. I look in the faces of men of all shades 
of opinion; but whatever our party affiliations, I trust 
there is in^all this audience the love of your beneficent 
institutions which make it possible for free labor to 
earn leisure, and for our institutions to make that leisure 
worth something. Our Union and our institutions 
under the blessings of equal laws — equal to all colors 
and all conditions — open a career for every man, how- 
ever humble, to rise to whatever place the power of a 
strong arm, the strength of a clear head, and the aspi- 
rations of a pure heart can lift him. That prospect 
ought to inspire every young man in this vast audience. 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



I heard yesterday and last night the songs of those 
who were lately redeemed from slavery, and I felt that 
there, too, was one of the greatest triumphs of the Re- 
public. I believe in the efficiency of forces that come 
down from the ages behind us, and I wondered if the 
tropical sun had not distilled its sweetness and if the 
sorrows of centuries of slavery had not distilled its 
sadness into voices which were touchingly sweet — 
voices to sing the songs of liberty as they sing them 
wherever they go. I thank that choir for the lesson 
they have taught me here. And now, fellow-citizens, 
thanking you all, good-bye. 



At Meadville, Pa., Aug. 9. 




OUR NATION'S INVITATION. 

Fellow Citizens: I am so near the borders of my 
old district that I feel very much at home with you. 
As I have been passing through your town, two 
thoughts have struck me which recalled something to 
my mind. When I was in Paris, at the Exposition of 
1867, among all the wonderful sights that greeted me 
there, nothing impressed me so much as two little 
buildings outside the great Exposition building in the 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



inclosure. One of them was an American schoolhouse, 
furnished with all the appliances of education ; the 
other was an American farmhouse, plain, cheap and 
comfortable, that some thoughtful American had put 
up on French ground. An exhibitor in charge told 
visitors, among whom were crowned heads and people 
of Europe, in our country on every section of land 
there is a schoolhouse like this that every child can go 
to without cost, and every man who will go to our 
Western country can, for about $500, build himself a 
farmhouse like that, and the Government gives him 
the farm. Come to our country, said he, and with 
your own labor you can make a home, and the nation 
to which you come will give you the land for your 
home and educate your children free. 

These were two sights that greeted me. Inside the 
building I saw the machinery that was exhibited at 
the World's Fair, the glory of American artisanship, 
and I said, These three things constitute the material, 
intellectual and domestic glory of our people. Now, 
when I come into your town I see your venerable col- 
lege looking down upon us. It is the representative 
of one of these ideas. I look upon your shops and 
see your industry representing another, and I see your 
homes scattered all around us ; so that you have the 
trinity of forces that help to make us a great Nation, 
and you an intelligent and prosperous people. With 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 




these thoughts, I thank you, fellow citizens, for this 
great welcome. 

At Ashland, Ohio, Aug. 25. 



RE-UNION OF THE GENERAL'S REGIMENT. 

Fellow Citizens : This is a family gathering, a 
military family, for in war a regiment is to the army 
what a family is to the whole civilized community. 
[Here a portion of the platform fell.] A military re- 
union without some excitement and some accident 
would be altogether too monotonous and tame to be 
interesting, and in this good-natured audience we can 
have a good many accidents like that and still keep 
quiet and be happy. I said this is a family reunion — 
an assembly of the old Forty-second military family, 
and it is well for us to meet here. Nineteen years ago 
I met a crowd of earnest citizens in that court-room 
above stairs. Your bell was rung; your people came 
out ; the teacher of your school was among them ; the 
boys of the school were there ; and after we had 
talked together a little while about our country and 
its imperiled flag, the teacher of the school offered 
himself to his country, and twenty of his boys with 
him. They never went back into the schoolhouse 
again, but in the dark days of November, 1861, they 
and enough Ashland County boys to make 100 went 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



down with me to Columbus to join another hundred 
that had gone before them from Ashland County, and 
these 200 of your children stood in the centre of our mili- 
tary family and bore these old banners that you see 
tattered before you to-day. One of them was given to 
our family by the ladies of Ashland, and Company C, 
from Ashland, carried it well. It was riddled with 
bullets and torn by underbrush. Flapped by winds 
of the Rebellion, it came back tattered as you see, 
but w r ith never a stain upon its folds, and never a 
touch of dishonor upon it anywhere; and the other of 
these banners was given by the special friends of 
Company A in my old town of Hiram — the student 
company from the heart of the Western Reserve — and 
it also shared, like its fellows, the same fate, and came 
home covered with the glory of the conflict. 

We were a family, I say again, and we did not let 
partisan politics disturb us then, and we do not let 
partisanship enter our circle here to-day. We did not 
quarrel about controversies outside of our great work. 
We agreed to be brethren for the Union under the flag 
against all its enemies everywhere, and brothers to all 
men who stood with us under the flag to fight the fight 
for the Union, whatever their color of skin, whatever 
their previous politics, whatever their religion. In 
that spirit we went out, in that spirit we returned; and 
we are glad to be in Ashland to-day, for it is one 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



the homes of our regiment, where we were welcomed 
in the beginning, and have always been welcome since. 
We are grateful for the welcome tendered us to-day by 
this great assembly of our old neighbors and friends 
of Ashland County. 

Now, fellow-citizens, a regiment, like a family, has 
the right to be a little clannish and exclusive. It does 
not deny the right of any other family to the same 
privileges, but it holds the members of its own family 
a little nearer and a little dearer than any other family 
in the world, and so the Forty-second Regiment 
has always been a band of brothers. I do not 
this day know a Forty-second man in the world 
who hates another Forty-second man. There never 
was a serious quarrel inside the regiment. There 
was never a serious disagreement between its offi- 
cers. The worst thing I have ever heard said 
against it is that all its three field officers came home 
alive — and they are all here on this stand to-day. It 
was perhaps a little against us that no one of us had 
the honor to get killed or seriously crippled, but we 
hold that it was not altogether our fault, and we trust 
that some day or other you will have forgiven us, if 
you have not to-day, for being alive and all here 
together. 

I want to say another thing about the soldier's work. 
I know of nothing in all the circle of human duty that 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



so unites men as the common suffering and danger 
and struggle that war brings upon a regiment. You 
cannot know a man so thoroughly and so soon as by the 
tremendous tests to which the war subjects him. These 
men knew each other by sight long before they knew 
each other by heart, but before they got back home 
they knew each other as you sometimes say you know 
a song — by heart, for they had been tested by fire, 
they had been tested by starvation, they had been 
tested by the grim presence of death, and each knew 
that those who remained were Union men, men that 
in all the hard, close chances of life had the stuff in 
them that enabled them to stand up in the very ex- 
tremes they did, and stand up ready to die, and such 
men, so tried and so acquainted never got over it, and 
the rest of the world must permit them to be just a 
little clannish toward each other. The rest of the 
world will not think we are narrow when they consider 
this fault of ours. 

Now, fellow-citizens, we are here to look into faces 
and enjoy your hospitality, to revive our old memories 
of the place ; but, far more than anything else, to 
look into each other's faces and revive old memories 
of a great many places less pleasing and home-like 
than Ashland. We have been meeting together in 
this way nearly fifteen years, and we have made a 
pledge to each other that as long as there are two of 







58 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

us left to shake hands we will meet aud greet the sur- 
vivors. Some of us felt a little hurt about ten years 
ago when the papers spoke of us as the survivors of the 
Forty-second regiment. We were the survivors, it is 
true, but we thought we were so surviving that it need 
not be put as though we were about to die now. I don't 
know how it is with the rest of you ; most of mankind 
grow old, and you can see it in their faces. I see 
here and there a bald head like my own, or a white one 
like Captain Gardner's, but to me these men will be 
boys until they die. We call them boys ; we meet and 
greet them as boys, even though they become very old 
boys, and in that spirit of young, hopeful, daring man- 
hood we expect to meet .them so long as we live. 
Nothing can get us a great way off from each other 
while we live. I am glad to meet these men here to- 
day. 

These men went out without one single touch of 
revenge in their hearts. They went out to maintain 
this Union and make it immortal, to put their own 
immortal lives into it, and make it possible that the 
people of Ashland should make the monogram of the 
United States as you see it up there [pointing to the 
monogram on the building, a wreath with " Union " 
inside of a very large N.], a capital N that stands for 
Nation, a Nation so large that it includes U. S. A., all 
people of the Republic, and will include it forever- f 

^S 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



more ; that is what we meant then, and it is what we 
mean now. And now, fellow-citizens and soldiers of 
the Forty-second regiment — for I have been talking 
mainly to you, and if any of this crowd have overheard 
I am not particularly to blame for it — I say, fellow- 
citizens and comrades, I greet you to-day with great 
satisfaction, and bid you a cordial good-by. 




At Mentor, Ohio, Sept. 4. 




THE NATION'S PROSPERITY. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentemen: I can 
hardly say that you have taken me by surprise, for I 
was informed some days ago that a party of commer- 
cial gentlemen from Indiana would call upon me to- 
day; but I am very pleasantly surprised at the large 
number of ladies and gentlemen who have honored 
me by this visit. I have listened with deep interest 
to the address of your chairman, and I give you one 
and all my thanks for the compliment which this visit 
implies. 

Your chairman informs me that you represent nearly 
all the leading branches of commercial industry in the 
State of Indiana, and some of the neighboring States. 
Few of our people understand how vast are the enter- 
prises represented by our internal trade. Almost 
every form of human labor contributes its products to 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



the trade that fills our thoroughfares and supplies our 
communities with the necessaries of life, and are all 
moved by the grand mainspring— labor. Permit me 
to illustrate its magic powers. Eighty-four years ago 
a company of* forty-two surveyors landed at the mouth 
of Conneaut Creek, a little stream that marks the 
boundary between Pennsylvania and Ohio. They 
landed on the Fourth day of July, 1796, and begun their 
work by celebrating our National Independence. 
There are many now living who were boys in their 
teens when this company of surveyors began their 
work. At that time from the Pennsylvania line to 
Detroit hardly a smoke ascended from a white man's 
cabin. The Western Reserve was an unbroken wil- 
derness. Three millions of acres had just been pur- 
chased from the State of Connecticut for forty cents 
an acre. To-day the Western Reserve furnishes hap- 
py and comfortable homes to more than three-fourths 
of a million of intelligent people. Except a French 
settlement, the State of Indiana was itself an unbroken 
wilderness, but is now a great and prosperous commu- 
nity, and thousands of miles beyond yon prairies the 
wilderness and mountain slopes smile with peace, pros- 
perity and the attendant blessings of civilization. 

What has wrought this wonderful transformation? 
The magical power of human labor through manifold 
ggles and dangers, through suffering and blood 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



These blessings have been secured to us, and, I trust, 
will be continued to our children's children. I venture 
to notice another fact. Every stroke of the axe, every 
blow of the hammer, every turn of a wheel, every pur- 
chase and sale, in short, every effort of labor is meas- 
ured by the standard of value fixed and declared by 
National law. I congratulate you as commercial men 
that your Government has at last restored to its people 
the ancient standard of value, and has made it possi- 
ble for our people everywhere to secure the blessing 
which bountiful harvests and prosperous times have 
brought them by placing our National finances on the 
solid basis of specie values. This fact forms no incon- 
siderable part of the security with which the great 
business transactions of the Nation are carried on, 
and you, as its representatives, as well as the laborers 
of the land, are sharers of these benefits and this se- 
curity. Ladies and gentlemen, accept my most cor- 
dial thanks for your visit. I welcome you to my home 
and to the kind greetings of my family. 



At Toledo, Ohio, Sept. 24. 




THE REGULARS AND VOLUNTEERS. 
Mr. President and Comrades of the Army of 
the Cumberland : I am sure there is not one of 
you here to-night that does not feel the inspiration of 




GENERAL GARFIELD. 



the evening, does not recognize that you are better, 
brighter, tenderer and truer for having sat here the 
last hour and heard these strong words of Union sen- 
timent, this glorious inspiration the poetry and beau- 
tiful recitation have given us all. The best war is 
horrible, but to have known what you have known, to 
have seen what you have seen, to have felt the inspi- 
ration as you have felt, as part of your service in the 
war, is a bitterment in your life that you can never fail 
to recognize. Glance around at the names on this 
gallery. There is not one that does not bring out 
with light and fire the old recollections. To have 
known some of these men who are named here was a 
liberal education in itself. To have known Phil Sher- 
idan's horse, yonder, was to make a great acquaint- 
ance, and a great idea, and a large inspiration, but to 
have known Phil on his horse was to have had an epi- 
tome on the glory of war and the sublimity of victory. 
These are some of the meanings that this night teaches 
me, that makes me rejoice to be here with my old com- 
rades again. But then, as we glance;around this circle 
of names, there comes down to us the information that 
one by one they are dropping out from the list of the 
living, but yet are seen as stars in the firmament of 
National glory. 

Less than a year ago the Army of the Cumberland 
and its deliberations were presided over by one who 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



now among the dead. That brave and noble comrade 
of ours who presided around the statue of Thomas 
left us only a few weeks after he gave us the hand of 
farewell. One by one rapidly they are going. It be- 
comes us to gather these glories into our hearts, to 
bind up into a small sheaf the glory and friendship of 
those who live together into the garland of our his- 
tory, to the glory of those who are gone. Look at 
that name yonder, at the centre, who was always the 
centre of the Army of the Cumberland while he was 
in it, and I think I see in it more of the crystallized 
mould of all that is living and great and worthy in 
American character than can well be found in the 
compass of all our books. The Army of the Cum- 
berland opened that great central pathway that ap- 
proached almost from the Mississippi bank back and 
along the chain of mountains that divides the Atlantic 
from our central slope. 

Starting here on our own Southern line, the Ohio 
River, th£ Army took first its name, " The Army of 
the Ohio," but as it advanced down to the heart of the 
work, it took the name of the great river that cut 
across its boundary, just in front of Stone River, and 
it was the business of that Army to pierce the centre. 
When it had broken a course through the very heart 
of the Gulf States, the old army corps swept to the 
East further, and came back through the Carolinas 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



and passed in review before the President at Washing- 
ton, came home in peace and glory again, and got 
largely back into the State of Ohio when they were 
through. There are two thoughts embodied in your 
Army of the Cumberland that it seems to me we 
might remember. You know at times there was a 
feeling, between the volunteer and regular army, of 
jealousy. It was reserved for the Army of the Cum- 
berland to unite these elements in fraternal bonds. 
We came at last to know that if you wanted a man 
for any kind of work you wanted a trained man. If 
you wanted a man trained in the science of war he 
must be a man trained in all its mystery, educated in 
the pure science, such as was embodied in Thomas and 
Sheridan and the other men who were educated in 
war. But the genius of our Government went fur- 
ther than that. Behind our Military Academy, below 
our regular army, there lay this magnificent body 
of cultivated, thinking, independent private citizens, 
who, when their country was in danger, sprang to war, 
not as a profession, but as a dreadful necessity, volun- 
teered their life, talent, force, all, in that glorious service 
under the leadership of those who were trained, and the 
united regulars and volunteers made the Army of the 
Cumberland an irresistible army against any equal body 
of men to be found on the globe. The spirit of the two 
elements was never better exhibited than at Chicka- 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



mauga, as you have heard in the poem. Thomas stood 
like a rock, the centre of that mighty fight ; and yet, 
with all that behind him, in front of him, all around 
him, in fact were the gallant, courageous volunteers, 
making the elements of science, art and courage tri- 
umphant in the fight. Think of it for a moment, and 
I take pleasure in referring to it. Here, away off on 
the hills, posted at a special post to do a special charge, 
were some three Ohio brigades, and when their com- 
mander heard the sound of cannon on the 20th of 
September at Chickamauga, he could not lie by and 
guard a bridge. Gordon Granger, with J. B. Stead- 
man as second, marched to the sound of the cannon 
until they came into the fight. When riding forward 
they asked Thomas, "Where shall we go in?" The 
answer in two monosylables only, "You see." A force 
almost in his rear, a force on his flank. The three 
Ohio brigades, the most of whom had never heard the 
sound of a hostile shot, filled the gap. Not less than 
700 were dead and wounded in forty minutes fight- 
ing, but they protected the flank, making them a liv- 
ing wall of fire around Thomas. There was the prac- 
ticed, trained soldier, and with him the enthusiasm of 
the independent, thinking volunteer, that made our 
war triumphant and victorious. I honor them both — 
both elements — and am glad to know that the Army 
of the Cumberland has always generously recognized 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 




both of these arms of our great service. My heart is 
rejoiced to be with you, and I am glad to look into 
the faces of these men and recognize them as old com- 
rades of the Army of the Cumberland. 



At Mentor, Ohio, Oct. 8. 




THE PURITY OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 

Mr. Chairman and Young Gentlemen : This 
is no ordinary event in the history of any man — in- 
deed, in the history of any people — when, as I am told, 
there are 400 young men here who have made this 
journey, not for any personal purpose, but to express 
their great, general, earnest purpose that arises in the 
hearts of active, intelligent young men when they first 
grapple with the great questions of their country. I 
know of nothing quite like this in our history. With all 
the pleasure it brings I am bound to say it brings a 
little disenchantment to me in this. Always to this 
time I have been accustomed to consider myself a 
young man. [Laughter and applause]. If before your 
arrival anybody had raised the question, I should 
have asserted, with a good deal of indignation, if 
anybody had denied it, that I myself was a young 
man. 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



But they tell me you are to cast your first National 
vote at a Presidential election. If that is so, young 
man as I am, I voted before any of you were born. 
[Laughter and applause]. If you are young, and 
voters, borrowing the language of Rip Van Winkle 
when he awoke from that long sleep, " Who in the 
world am I?" [Laughter and applause]. I must 
have passed the very flush of youth, at least. But, 
young gentlemen, I have not so far left the coast of 
youth to travel inland but that I can very well remember 
the state of young manhood, from an experience in it 
of some years, and there is nothing ta me in this world 
so inspiring as the possibilities that lie locked up in 
the head and breast of a young man. The hopes that 
lie before him, the great inspirations around him, the 
great aspirations above him, all these things, with the 
untried pathway of life opening up its difficulties and 
dangers, inspire him to courage and force and work. 
It is a spectacle that the very gods would look down 
upon in ancient Roman days with more than ordinary 
interest. 

Now, let me say a single word or two, in answer to this 
great kindness and compliment of your coming to my 
house, about some of the thoughts that I know get into 
the hearts of young men and inspire them, and some 
delusions that are likely to get into their minds. Let 
me speak of one delusion that I think, from the re 





68 



GENERAL GARFIELD. 




marks of your Chairman, you are not likely to have. 
It is a delusion that affects all men more or less, par- 
ticularly the young men — the delusion that good 
things and great things are some way off yonder, 
away abroad. That is one of the delusions that I 
hope you are not living in now. To illustrate this. 
Where I spent my childhood there is a lonely little 
brook and a gorge where we used to go down and find 
slate stones and whittle them out into pencils for our- 
selves that were better than all other pencils that we 
brought from abroad. But if any boy ever brought 
into our school what is not in any English dictionary, 
but in the ' school-boy's dictionary, a " boughten " 
pencil, he could get a whole handful of our home- 
made pencils for it, and yet every one of ours was 
better than the best that he brought from abroad. 
There was a delusion among us that outside of us, 
away from us, was glory, was greatness. 

Now, as to our country, let us not get any such de- 
lusion into our heads. I know all about abroad. I 
know what it is to enlarge our minds by it. But I 
want you to feel in the depths of your heart that there 
is no abroad in all this world that is half equal to the 
glory of being an American here at home and to-day. 
[Great applause.] Right here in this yard is a splen- 
did specimen of American sovereignty, the root and 
crown of this world of sovereignty. Enlarge it into 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



the million of men who vote and you have the grand, 
august sovereign of this last and best born of time, 
the American Republic. Now that the sovereign shall 
be unshackled forever, that that sovereign shall be 
unpurchasable when he stands at the ballot-box to 
order the supreme will of the Nation, that that sov- 
ereign shall be unintimidated by mortal man when he 
utters that final omnific word that commands the con- 
tinent — that is the great purpose that all true Ameri- 
cans should keep in their minds. 

When I see such a band of earnest young men as 
meet me here to-day I feel certain that if they could 
deploy themselves as a ballot-box guard to defend the 
purity of the American ballot-box ; to stand around 
it as around the cradle of our heir-apparent of Ameri- 
can sovereignty, such guardians, such defenders, will 
keep the Republic pure and keep it free. 

Young gentlemen, your visit to me gives me a com- 
pliment of the highest sort, and while it disenchants 
me, as I said a little while ago, it still reaches the hand 
of youth out to me, which I take with all cordiality 
and earnestness ; and for your tendered support to 
me, which is not for my sake, but for the sake of the 
cause of which I am now the representative, I give 
you all the thanks of which my heart is capable. The 
house is small, the farm is small, the township is small, 
the county is a small one, but all there is in it to give 





70 GENERAL GARFIELD. 




of generosity, and hospitality and welcome — all that 
is in my hands to give — is yours while you stay. I 
bid you welcome to all there is of us, gentlemen. 



At Mentor, Ohio, October 15. 




TO BUSINESS MEN. 

Mr. Ely and Gentlemen of Cleveland : This 
is a new situation, and new sensations and suggestions 
arise with it. I should be altogether unworthy of this 
State and of my native country if I did not feel deep 
sensibility at this expression of your confidence in me, 
and all this greater, more significant expression of 
your understanding of what the great contest now 
pending in this country means in its relation to our 
prosperity. 

You are business men of Cleveland, and that means 
a great deal ; you are citizens of Ohio, and that means 
more ; you are citizens of the Republic, and that 
means a great deal more, and in your three-fold ca- 
pacity I greet you and thank you for this demonstra- 
tion of your confidence. 

Let me speak a moment about these three thoughts : 
You are business men, suppose, not this yardfull 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



alone, but all the business men of America were as- 
sembled together. What would they do? Rather, 
what would they not do if they got from the Eternal 
Powers an insurance policy that four years to come 
there should be no disturbance in the great forces that 
play upon the business prosperity of this people ? The 
power that could underwrite such a policy to you 
would call from you more sacrifice in a mere business 
sense than you ever made under any circumstances. 
Now, no such guaranty will be given you by the su- 
pernatural powers ; but while frosts, pestilence, tem- 
pests and all the great accidents that come to us without 
our power to prevent it, are beyond our reach, yet there 
is a great political organization in this country that 
can give you a policy, underwritten by its faith and in 
its own hand, against all the evils that can come to 
you from bad legislation and the reckless wickedness 
of bad finance. 

For such a business insurance, the business men of 
Cleveland and the business men of America are mani- 
festly willing to make some effort and bear some sacri- 
fice, and that, I take it, is the business meaning of this 
assemblage here to-day. 

Now, the second thought I had was : You are citi- 
zens of Ohio and you are living illustrations of the 
children of the pioneers who planted Ohio. 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



When your fathers were born Ohio was unknown, ex- 
cept as a trackless wilderness, and yet where the smoke 
from not a dozen white men's cabins ascended to the 
sky in all this territory, now three and a quarter mil- 
lions of happy people, prosperous, honorable and suc- 
cessful, are living and guiding the destinies of a peo- 
ple as great in numbers and wealth as all who inhabi- 
ted the thirteen colonies when our fathers won their 
independence. What a spectacle is that? And all 
this prosperity was won by the simple, straightforward 
process of downright hard work. That was what did 
it. Labor first laid out on the raw materials that God 
made, and then capital, which is only another name 
for crystallized labor saved up, protected and saved 
by the strong arms of equal and just and honest laws. 
Now, that is Ohio. 

Well, now, there is a third and larger thought. 
Proud as you are of what you have been and what 
you have done for Cleveland, for Ohio — yet your pride 
rises at a little piece of bunting, a flag with stars and 
stripes upon it. That speaks of a great continent 
with a Government that covers it from sea to sea, 
from the Lakes to the Gulf, and that you, as citizens 
of that Republic, have a right to walk on every foot 
of it as the equal of any man who lives anywhere, and 
that the score of black men that I see here and there 
have just as good a right as the whitest of us all. 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 




Now, these are the thoughts that come to me as I look 
upon these Cuyahoga faces. 



At Cleveland, O., Oct. 19. 




INDIANA GREETS GARFIELD. 

Gentlemen : You have come as bearers of dis- 
patches, so your Chairman tells me, and I am glad 
to see the bringers of the news. Your uniform, the 
name of your club and the place from which you 
come are all full of suggestions. You reccollect the 
verses that were often quoted about the old Conti- 
nental soldiers — the old three-cornered hat and the 
breeches, and all that were so queer. Your costume 
brings back to our memory the days of the Conti- 
nentals of 1776, whose principles I hope you repre- 
sent. You are called the Lincoln Club, and Lincoln 
was himself a revival, a restoration of the days of '76 
and their cloctrines. The great proclamation of eman- 
cipation which he penned was the second Declara- 
tion of Independence — broader and fuller ; the new 
testament of human liberty. 

And then you come from Indiana, supposed to be 
a Western State, but yet in its traditions older than 
Ohio. More than one hundred years ago a gallant 
Virginian went far up into your wilderness, captured 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



two or three forts, took down the British flags and 
reared the stars and stripes. Vincennes and Cahokia 
and a post in Illinois were a part of that capture. 
Your native State was one of the first fruits of that 
splendid fighting power which gave the whole West to 
the United States. And now these representatives of 
Indiana come, representing the Revolution in your 
hats, representing Abraham Lincoln in your badges, 
and representing the victory both of the Revolution 
and of Lincoln in the news you bring. I could not 
be an American and fail to welcome your costumes, 
your badges, your news and yourselves. 

Many Indiana men were my comrades in the days 
of the war. I remember a regiment of them that was 
under my command near Corinth. When it was neces- 
sary for the defense of our forces to cut down a little 
piece of timber — seventy-five acres — we unboxed from 
my brigade about 4,000 new axes, and the Fifty-fifth 
regiment of Indiana Volunteers chopped down more 
trees in half a day than I supposed it was possible could 
fall in any forest in a week. It appears that in the 
political forests from which you have just come your 
axes have been busy again. I especially welcome 
the axemen of the Fifty-fifth regiment who may 
happen to be here ; and thank you all, gentlemen, for 
the compliment of your visit and the good news you 
bring. I do not prize that news half so much for its 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



personal relations to you and me as I do because it is 
a revival of the spirit of '76, the spirit of Abraham 
Lincoln, the spirit of universal liberty, and the spirit 
of just, equal law all over the land. Gentlemen, I 
thank you again, and I shall be glad to take you by 
the hand. 

At Mentor, O., Oct. 23. 





TO HIS ASHTABULA FRIENDS. 
Gentlemen : I believe you are nearly all, if not 
all, my constituents. That this is a home gathering, a 
sort of harvest home, just after the ordinary harvest 
and just before that other harvest, that somebody will 
gather in a short time, and therefore I feel the utmost 
freedom in meeting you and greeting you. We have 
been in the habit in the old XlXth District for about fifty 
years last past of believing in the existence and steadi- 
ness of the North Star, and we have believed in it in 
cloudy weather, when nobody could see a star. Amidst 
clouds and darkness this people kept on believing in 
it until nearly all the world saw it and saw the great 
constellation wheeling around its steady and unmova- 
ble centre. That North Star of the symbol of free- 
dom and the equal rights of all men, has been kept 
steadily in view by the better people of the Western 
Reserve these forty years ; for a long time before the 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



" first voters" were born. These young men were 
born in the belief in it, and will not be likely to for- 
get it, because it now shines plainly in the Northern 
Hemisphere. 

To speak without a figure, the people of this old 
XlXth District long ago learned to be content with 
being right, even when they were in an apparently 
hopeless minority. Your speaker has just referred to 
Joshua R. Giddings. Think of the long, hard strug- 
gle where he was ostracised by all men excepting half 
a dozen at the National Capital, and denied the com- 
mon civility and friendship of social life, but he fought 
on and fought on till in his last days he saw them 
triumph. 

I have never received a compliment that touched 
my heart more deeply than when, after a speech I 
made in Congress for the same cause, there came from 
Jefferson, the capital of your county, a letter from the 
old patriot, thanking me that I had taken up his work, 
and saying I was worthily wearing his mantle. I am 
glad to meet you, young gentlemen, believing you are 
bound by united ties to be true to those great princi- 
ples that the Western Reserve helped to plant and 
cherish. I know what this old district has done, and 
what it has suffered for its convictions ; and I am glad 
to know that in rainy and tempestuous weather, in 
season and out of season, the Old Guard will be found 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 




wherever the banner of freedom points the way to 
battle. You are welcome here to-day, gentlemen, 
thrice welcome. We are friends, we are neighbors, we 
are companions in the common cause ; and I trust 
that no young man who makes his first choice of party 
association to-day will be sorry for it when he looks 
back from the end of this century to the year 1880. 



At Mentor, Ohio, October 20. 




THE EMANCIPATION PROBLEM SOLVED. 

Gentlemen : I have listened carefully to what 
your speakers have said ; I have noted your manifes- 
tations of applause at the special points of their re- 
marks. All the time, not now while the speaking is 
going on, but the time since the great struggle for 
equal rights in this country culminated in war, I have 
studied ypur pioblem with no little solicitude. It was 
a difficult problem not for you only, but for us, and 
equally difficult for the men who lately held you in 
slavery. 

Of all problems that any nation ever confronted 
none was ever more difficult than that of settling the 
great race question which your existence upon this 
continent brought to our people and of settling it on 
the basis of broad justice and equal rights to all. It 



--^J^ 





GENERAL GARFIELD. 



was a tremendous trial of the faith of the American 
people ; a tremendous trial of the strength of our in- 
stitutions. It was not for your sake alone that the 
thoughtful men of this country struck slavery and said 
it must die. It was certainly a good reason why sla- 
very ought to die, that it wronged your race ; but it 
was an equally good reason why it should die because 
it was dangerous to the peace and prosperity of the 
white race and to the stability of the Republic. We 
are always inclined to express too much sympathy 
with the man who suffers wrong. That is right ; but 
we ought also to express anxious solicitude for the 
man who does the wrong, for in one very important 
sense he is more to be pitied than the victim. If a 
man murders you without provocation, your soul bears 
no burdens of the wrong, but all the angels of the 
universe will weep for the misguided man who com- 
mitted the murder. And* o I say the men who enslaved 
your race were wronging themselves as well as you. 
To protect them from being wrengdoers and shield 
your race from suffering wrong was the mighty prob- 
lem which was solved by the abolition of slavery 

Now, fellow-citizens, after the fierce struggle of the 
war, after Lincoln had given utterance to the great 
thought that the centuries of slavery had committed 
so great a sin that without the shedding blood there 
was no remission, and that our war was the bloody ex 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



piation for that sin, even then, when you were free by 
the proclamation of Lincoln and by the amended Con- 
stitution that gave you citizenship, your problem was 
not solved. What is freedom without the intelligence 
to use it wisely ? What is freedom without virtue and 
intelligence combined to make it, not a curse, but a 
blessing ? You were not made free merely to be al- 
lowed to vote, but in order to enjoy an equality of op- 
portunity in the race of life and to stand equal before 
the law. Permit no man to praise you because you 
are black, nor wrong you because you are black. Let 
it be understood that you are ready and willing to 
work out your own material salvation by your own en- 
ergy, your own worth, your own labor. All that lib- 
erty can do for you is to give you a fair and equal 
chance, within the limits of the Constitution, and by 
the exercise of its proper powers it is the purpose of 
the best men on this continent to give you this equal 
chance and nothing more. 

I congratulate you on the great advance which your 
race has already made under liberty. I have seen 
your representatives in Congress, one of them in the 
Senate, and I have seen them behave with such self- 
restraint, good sense, judgment, modesty and patriot- 
ism, that it has given me new hope that all their breth- 
ren will continue to climb up toward the light with 

ery new opportunity. I will not affect to be 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



more your friend than thousands of others. I do not 
even pretend to be particularly your friend, but only 
your friend with all other just men. On that basis 
and within those limitations, whatever can justly or 
fairly be done to assure to you an equality of oppor- 
tunity it will always be my pleasure to do. 



At Mentor, Ohio, Oct. 26. 




TO HIS TRUMBULL COUNTY FRIENDS. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : You have no idea what 
it is to me to look out upon this circle of faces. There 
have been a good many strangers in this yard in the 
last two weeks. There are some strangers, perhaps, 
here now, but in this circle, all along its line, there are 
faces that flash back to me the memories of these 
twenty years past — years full of struggle, full of ques- 
tion, full of events, full of friendship, full of victo- 
ries, full of all that goes to make up the life of public 
and private friendship on this Western Reserve. 

You cannot know what strength it brings to me to 
see these friends who have stood, not by me alone, but 
by the cause that they believed I represent, and have 
stood by it in a most unselfish, earnest, intelligent, 
forcible, effective manner during all these years. Why, 
I see men in this circle who, in the whole of this long 
time, have never betrayed to me, by any sign or any 
d, that they had the least purpose of their own to 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



serve, but only the purpose to serve their country and 
its best interests, and that their friendship for me was 
largely, if not altogether, because they thought I was 
capable of rendering some service to the cause they 
loved and the country they revered. 

A man with such friendships around him, with such 
support behind him, would be a very poor piece of 
timber, indeed, if he did not amount to something. 
And let me say, out of the soil of such hearts as 
these, out of the forces of such people as these there 
can grow all that is best in our civilization and under 
our institutions. I know not what awaits me in the 
future. I never discount it so far as it relates to my- 
self. I never allow myself to be elated with what 
may be, nor depress myself with what may be ; but I 
do say this, that I cannot conceive that the time can 
ever come when the friendship of these men that are 
gathered in this yard to-day can bz anything but dear 
to me, and of the greatest possible value in strength- 
ening my heart and hope, whatever the field of my 
work may be. 

At Mentor, Ohio, Oct. 28. 




TO HIS OLD COLLEGE FRIENDS. 
Judge Day, Ladies and Gentlemen : I once 
read of a man who tried to wear the armor and wield 
sword of some ancient ancestor, but found them 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 

too large for his stature and strength. If I should try 
at this moment to wear and sway the memories which 
your presence awakens, I should be overwhelmed and 
wholly unable to marshal and muster the quick-com- 
ing throng of memories which this semi-circle of old 
friends and neighbors has brought to me. Here are 
schoolfellows of twenty-eight years ; here are men and 
women who were my pupils a quarter of a century ago ; 
here are venerable men, who, twenty-one years ago, 
in the town of Kent, launched me upon the stormy 
sea of political life. I see others who were soldiers 
in the old regiment which I had the honor to com- 
mand, and could I listen to the touching and thought- 
ful words of my friend, the venerable late Chief-Jus- 
tice of Ohio, who has just spoken, without remember- 
ing that evening in 1861, of which he spoke too mod- 
estly, when he and I stood together in the old church 
at Hiram, and called upon the young men to go forth 
to battle for the Union, and be enlisted before they 
slept and thus laid the foundation of the Forty-second 
Regiment. 

How can I forget all these things and all that has 
followed? How can I forget that twenty-five years 
of my life were so braided and intertwined with the 
lives of the people of Portage County, when I see men 
and women from all its townships standing at my door ? 
I cannot forget these things while life and conscious- 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



ness remain. No other period of my life can be like 
that. The freshness of youth, the very springtide of 
life, the brightening on toward noonday, all were 
with you and of you, my neighbors, my friends, my 
cherished comrades. In all the relations of social, 
student, military and political life and friendship, you 
are here so close to my heart that I cannot trust my- 
self to an attempt to marshal these memories with 
anything like coherence. To know that my neighbors 
and friends in Portage County, since the first day of 
my Congressional life, have never sent to any conven- 
tion a delegate who was hostile to me ; that through 
all the storm of detraction that roared around me, the 
members of the Old Guard of Portage County have 
never wavered in their faith and friendship, but have 
stood an unbroken phalanx with their locked shields 
above my head, and have given me their hearts in 
every contest — if a man can carry in his memory a 
jewel more precious than this, I am sure Judge Day 
has never heard what it is. 



at Painesville, O., July 3. 




WHAT MONUMENTS TEACH. 

Fellow-citizens : I cannot fail to respond on 
such an occasion, in sight of such a monument to such 
cause, sustained by such men. While I have listened 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



to what my friend has said, two questions have been 
sweeping through my heart. One was, " What does 
the monument mean ?" and the other, " What will the 
monument teach ?" Let me try, and ask you for a 
moment to help me to answer. What does the monu- 
ment mean ? Oh, the monument means a world of 
memories and a world of deeds, and a world of tears, 
and -a world of glories. You know, thousands know, 
what it is to offer up your life to the country, and that 
is no small thing, as every soldier knows. Let me put 
a question to you for a moment. Suppose your 
country, in the awfully embodied form of majestic 
law, should stand above you and say, " I want your 
life, come up here on the platform and offer it," how 
many would walk up before that majestic presence 
and say, " Here I am ; take this life and use it for 
your great needs ?" And yet almost 2,000,000 men 
made that answer [applause], and a monument stands 
yonder to commemorate their answer. That is one of 
its meanings. But, my friends, let me try you a little 
further. To give up life is much, for it is to give up 
wife, and home, and child, and ambition. But let me 
test you this way further. Suppose this awfully ma- 
jestic form should call out to you and say, " I ask you 
to give up health and drag yourself, not dead, but half 
alive through a miserable existence for long years; 
until you perish and die in your crippled and helpless 








GENERAL GARFIELD. 



condition. I ask you to volunteer to do that." It calls 
for a higher reach of patriotism and self-sacrifice, but 
hundreds of thousands of you soldiers did that. That 
is what the monument means also. But let me ask 
you to go one step further. Suppose your country 
should say : " Come here on this platform, and in 
my name and for my sake consent to be idiots. Con- 
sent that your very brain and intellect shall be broken 
down into hopeless idiocy for my sake." How many 
could be found to make that venture ? And yet thou- 
sands, and that with their eyes wide open to the horri- 
ble consequences, obeyed that call ; and let me tell 
how 100,000 of our soldiers were prisoners of war, 
and many of them when death was stalking near, 
when famine was climbing up into their hearts, and 
idiocy was threatening all that was left of their intel- 
lects. The gates of their prison stood open every 
day if they would quit, desert their flag, and enlist 
under the flag of the enemy, and out of 180,000 not 
two per cent, ever received the liberation from death, 
starvation, idiocy, all that might come to them ; but 
they took all these horrors and all these sufferings 
in preference to going back upon the flag of their 
country and the glory of its truth. Great God, was 
ever such measure of patriotism reached by any man 
on this earth before. That is what your monument 
eans. By the subtle chemistry that no man knows, 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 



all the blood that was shed by our brethren, all the 
lives that were devoted, all the grief that was felt, at 
last crystallized itself into granite, rendered immortal 
the great truth for which they died and it stands there 
to-day, and that is what your monument means. 

Now, what does it teach ? What will it teach ? 
Why, I remember the story of one of the old conquer- 
ors of Greece who had traveled, in his boyhood, over 
the battle-fields where Miltiades had won victories and 
set up trophies. Returning, he said : " These tro- 
phies of Miltiades will never let me sleep." Why? 
Something had taught him from the chiseled stone a 
lesson that he could never forget ; and, fellow-citizens, 
that silent sentinel, that crowned granite column, will 
look down upon the boys that will walk these streets 
for generations to come, and will not let them sleep 
when their country calls them. More than the bugler 
on the field from his dead lips will go out a call that 
the children of Lake County will hear after the grave 
has covered us all and our immediate children. That 
is the teaching of your monument. That is its lesson, 
and it is the lesson of endurance for what we believe, 
and it is the lesson of sacrifices for what we think ; 
the lesson of terrorism for what we mean to sustain, 
and that lesson cannot be lost to a people like this. 
It is not a lesson of revenge ; it is not a lesson of 
wrath ; it is the grand, sweet, broad lesson of the i 







GENERAL GARFIELD. 



mortality of the truth that we hope will soon cover as 
with the grand shekinah of light and glory all parts of 
this Republic, from the Lakes to the Gulf. I once 
entered a house in old Massachusetts where, over its 
doors, were two crossed swords. One was the sword 
carried by the grandfather of its owner on the field of 
Bunker Hill, and the other was the sword carried by 
the English grandsire of the wife on the same field, 
and on the other side of the conflict. Under those 
crossed swords, in the restored harmony of domestic 
peace, lived a happy and contented and free family, 
under the light of our Republican liberties. I trust 
the time is not far distant when, under the crossed 
swords and the locked shields of Americans, North 
and South, our people shall sleep in peace and rise in 
liberty, love, and harmony under the union of our flag 
of the Stars and Stripes. 



At Mentor, Ohio, Nov. 



TO THE FACULTY AND STUDENTS OF 
OBERLIN COLLEGE. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : This 
spontaneous visit is so much more agreeable than a 
prepared one, it comes more directly from the heart 
of the people who participate, and I receive it 






GENERAL GARFIELD. 




greater compliment for that reason. I do not wish to 
be unduly impressible or superstitious, but, though we 
have outlived the days of the augurs, I think we have 
a right to think of some events as omens, and I greet 
this as a happy and auspicious omen, that the first 
general greeting since the event of yesterday is ten- 
dered to me by a venerable institution of learning. 
The thought has been abroad in the w T orld a good 
deal, and with reason, that there is a divorce between 
scholarship and politics. Oberlin, I believe, has never 
advocated that divorce, but there has been a sort of 
cloistered scholarship in the United States that has 
stood aloof from active participation in public affairs, 
and I am glad to be greeted here to-day by the active, 
live scholarship of Ohio, and I know of no place where 
scholarship has touched upon the nerve-centre of pub- 
lic intelligence so effectually as at Oberlin. For this 
reason I am specially grateful for this greeting from 
the Faculty and students of Oberlin College and its 
venerable president. Whatever the significance of 
yesterday's event may be it will be all the more signifi- 
cant for being immediately indorsed by the scholarship 
and culture of my State. 





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LIBRARY OF 



CONGRESS 



019 985 220 6 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 985 220 6 



